


(The) Only Star in the Night

by threewalls



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Community: trope_bingo, Gen, Sharing a Bed, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-25 21:11:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/642996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tao finds trouble in Jakarta.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(The) Only Star in the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Written for trope_bingo: "sharing a bed" and hc_bingo: "trust issues". With thanks to m. for much hand-holding.

The snow causes all sorts of delays, which means they meet up in Jakarta directly instead of Seoul or Beijing after their time apart. Yixing is stuck in Shanghai tonight, with a very early connection that they're all hoping he makes. It's a fluke that Zitao's connection from Hong Kong just happens to get in five hours after everyone else's flights and well after eleven Jakarta time when they have rehearsals from seven tomorrow. 

It's only _duizhang_ and one of the Indonesian managers who are waiting when Zitao clears immigration, them and hundreds of screaming fans. Everyone else is already checked into the hotel, even Wu Fan, who walks through the airport crowd and the hotel lobby with the same confident stride, his footsteps out of time with the click of camera phones. 

The clerk behind reception has a suit that's well-cut across his shoulders, something Zitao tries not to let his eyes linger upon. His eyes are less attractive, Zitao finds, when the clerk repeats something twice and Zitao looks over to find him staring. He's smiling, but somehow that doesn't reassure Zitao that he hasn't been caught out.

The only word he recognised must be "passport", and that's what their manager asks Zitao for. He hands it over and picks up his parka, holding it in his arms a little higher against his chest. 

The T-shirt he is wearing is cut low enough to show his collarbones. He has a scarf tucked into his carry-on and his parka zips up to the hollow of his throat, but they were for home, not twenty-six degrees and 88% humidity in Jakarta tonight. 

The clerk types for a few moments into the computer at the desk, swipes a card through a machine, and sets the card and Zitao's passport on the counter. He leans over to slide them both across to Zitao, though their manager is closer. The clerk is still smiling, at Zitao; he smiles back, even if it's half as soft, because he knows about being professional.

"Fifth floor," the clerk says, in accented Mandarin, before their manager interrupts him in Indonesian. Zitao does not need to follow their argument to know it is one, however quiet their manager is keeping his voice. He takes his passport and leaves the key, stepping closer to Wu Fan and closing his eyes against the inevitable camera flashes on his back.

Wu Fan whispers that the rest of them are on the eighth floor, two rooms across from another two, and that they'd asked specifically for five together when they checked in before.

Their manager tells Wu Fan to take Zitao upstairs. Three women ride in the lift with them, and demand autographs from each. Zitao can't explain why he feels more comfortable, confined in glass and metal with them, than standing in the marble-paved lobby, waiting for his key.

\---

It's well after one by the time their manager comes back with a frown, and what turns out to be the very same room key for the very same room as before. The clerk that served them turns out to have been the acting night manager for the hotel, and insisted that the nearest room is the one he originally assigned Zitao, even if it is three floors down.

The hotel is overbooked, their manager passes on, because of the snow that's delaying all flights through east Asian airports. The hotel will move him tomorrow, because tonight he's been put in a double room, not a twin. 

Zitao nods, because he knows what that pause from their manager means.

Hotel security are also providing guards who will check the corridor outside their rooms every hour, which is more than they have had at other times. Their manager is going to sleep, and suggests they all do so, too.

"I could take the double," Wu Fan offers, and Jongdae freezes beside Zitao, the shoulder that had been touching his arm pulling away. 

Jongdae will put his hand on Zitao's waist, or lean in, or dance with him, all those things they are supposed to do in front of cameras. He will also laugh with Zitao in a way that he doesn't think is fake, even if they understand maybe half of what each other says. He pretends not to notice Jongdae's little flinches at times like this, because Jongdae pretends he doesn't make them. 

"It's ok," Zitao says. "You've already unpacked. It's only for a few hours of sleep, right?"

"Call if anything happens," Wu Fan says. "I'm sleeping with my phone right here beside the bed."

"And I'll make sure he wakes up if you do!" Jongdae says, standing when Zitao stands.

"I'll be ok," he insists, shouldering his carry-on as he nods at both to keep them from walking with him all the way to his room.

Zitao's body has adjusted to the hotel's air conditioning, so it's easier to manoeuvre in the corridors with his parka on, and the handle of his suitcase in his hand. He shares the elevator with a couple too interested in each other to look under his hood, but doesn't pass anyone else. 

The room he has is larger than any room he's stayed in alone and the bed looks larger than a double. Maybe he got an upgrade to excuse the inconvenience. It seems further from the elevators than the rooms the others have. He walks his suitcase all the way into the room, and turns back to slide the security chain on the back of the hotel room door into place.

He hasn't showered yet, despite twenty hours in transit, because it's late and he didn't want to be showering on the other side of a thin wall while Wu Fan and Jongdae tried to sleep. He hangs his parka on the back of a chair and strips his clothes into a pile beside his suitcase. He pulls his toiletry bag out and starts the shower running. 

\---

The bed is very large for one person, in a room so empty and so silent. Zitao can't hear other guests through the walls. He curls up on a towel draped over one of the soft padded chairs.

There's free wifi. Some of their fans are better at capturing Zitao's good sides than others. He can sort the pictures from Qingdao into rough order through the way his shoulders hunch up and up as the delays mounted. He has saved five pictures he's still deciding between, but hasn't changed his weibo yet. He looks happiest in the Jakarta shots, walking a pace behind Wu Fan, but he doesn't want to put up a picture that bares his throat.

His mother drove him to airport at six in the morning, to be checked in as early as possible. Zitao has been alone among crowds of people all day, except for an hour or two with Wu Fan and Jongdae. It's not what he expected, but what day ever is?

Zitao hears a click, and looks up to watch his hotel room door swing open. He drops his phone. 

He calls out to wait, he's coming. In Mandarin. In Korean. In English. The security chain pulls taut. Fingers reach through the gap. Big thick fingers creep along the length of chain, looping the secure end with an elastic band, and Zitao can't pretend it could be one of his managers.

The door shuts, and he leaps forward. The elastic snaps against his fingers, breaking, and he shoulders all his weight against the door. The lock clicks, and the handle jerks; he grabs at it.

Zitao is naked, feeling the vibration of slaps and kicks against the door through his back and his legs. He waits, holding the door handle locked, until it all stops.

He turns to look out the peep-hole. He catches a glimpse of the black back of a man in a suit. He had dark hair. Big fingers means a man, blunt square fingernails instead of polish. Maybe he had a camera. Why would he have a keycard that opens Zitao's door? 

His phone is on the table on the other side of the room. 

He finds his keys in his carry-on, and unlocks his suitcase. He dresses completely, socks to sweater, and wraps his parka around him. The air conditioning is strong.

Someone trying to break into his hotel room isn't nothing. But whoever it is, is gone, and they didn't get in. They didn't take pictures or take his belongings or take whatever they came for. Is that an emergency? He sits on the edge of the bed, and makes himself fall back, the comforting shape of his phone in his hand, and pretends to sleep. 

But the bed is too large, and the bulk of the bathroom would block the door from view of anyone lying down. Zitao thinks of the man behind the desk at reception, the weight of his smile, and that so many people wear black suits.

Wu Fan answers on the eighth ring.

\---

The knock on the door makes Zitao jump, even though he's expecting it. He stands up, his back pushing against the door, and looks through the peep-hole. 

Wu Fan doesn't look like Zitao just woke him up, not like the roughness of his voice on the phone fifteen minutes ago. His hair doesn't look very styled, but it's more tamed than Jongdae's, which is still flat on one side. The sight of the two of them with their pyjama pants sticking out from under their coats makes Zitao smile, even though his cheeks are wet.

Wu Fan knocks again, and Zitao unlocks the door. 

On the phone, he had made it through explaining what had happened, the keycard and the elastic band and the man with thick fingers and a black suit, his voice steady until Wu Fan interrupted Zitao's considered explanation of why it wasn't an emergency with "we're coming to get you." The helplessness in the way Wu Fan looks at him steals Zitao's composure all over again.

There's an apology in the flex of Wu Fan's hands the moment before he raises his arms. _Duizhang_ is taller, someone steady for Zitao to fall against, huge hands that he can feel even through the down filling of his parka.

Zitao is grateful but the right words clog in his nose and his throat. It's easier to list off what he has unpacked for Wu Fan when he asks. It's not much. 

"Toiletry bag, check," Jongdae calls. 

Zitao pulls away, because he can hear the click of the clasp on his carry-on. He will be the one kneeling to re-pack his dirty clothes away, not Jongdae. Not when Zitao got them both out of bed.

Jongdae touches his shoulder, holding out a fistful of tissues he's just pulled from the bathroom dispenser. "Anything else?" he asks, and it only registers with Zitao, then, that Jongdae has been sticking to Mandarin.

He shakes his head, and blows his nose. He doesn't have the right words in Korean, either.

"One for each of us, _duizhang._ " Jongdae holds up Zitao's backpack with a grin.

Wu Fan sighs, and waves Zitao away from his suitcase.

Jongdae slings the backpack onto his shoulders, and sticks a hand out for Zitao to take. 

\---

They don't talk much as they walk through the corridors, over thin carpet and past cream painted walls. They don't pass anyone, either, so it's not until they're standing outside Wu Fan and Jongdae's door that he lets go of Zitao's hand.

"I can sleep on the floor," Zitao offers. There's not much space between the two twin beds, but there's enough. He'd forgotten how small the beds were. 

"Don't be ridiculous," Wu Fan says, pushing the handle of Zitao's suitcase into his hand. "Go get changed into your pyjamas." 

He can hear them moving furniture while he undresses in their bathroom. The sounds are not as immediately obvious as Jongdae's running commentary. Zitao comes back to their twins pushed together. He helps lay the blankets cross-ways over the beds, and stands at the end. 

"You're in the middle, Taozi," Wu Fan says. "I need to sleep next to my phone."

"Next to his bottle of water." Jongdae says, perfectly straight-faced until he can shoot a grin at Zitao behind Wu Fan's back.

"Hydration is a basic part of any skin care regime," Wu Fan says. "Just get into bed."

Even with two beds together, there's not much space. Zitao can feel Wu Fan's long legs on one side, and Jongdae's cold feet on the other. It should be easier to relax with other people in the same room, in the same bed, but Zitao holds his muscles too tight in the dark, his hands on his thighs.

He feels a soft touch on his arm, and knows that it must Jongdae, even if that's not what he would have expected. 

"You can move," he whispers to Zitao. "To be comfortable."

Zitao carefully tilts his torso and his hips, a little at a time, as he cants his front away from Jongdae. "Like having pictures taken?" he whispers back. Jongdae never flinches when he touches Zitao for the cameras.

"Yes, yes," he agrees. Zitao can feel Jongdae moving quickly into the extra space behind him, a steadying hand on Zitao's hip. "You can relax," he says. "No cameras here."

"Shh," Wu Fan groans, and he rolls onto his side, too. Zitao can fit his knees into the bend in Wu Fan's. "Don't give them ideas. Please."

Under the blankets, Jongdae finds his hand, and Zitao laces their fingers together.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also comment at my [LJ](http://threewalls.livejournal.com/361559.html) or my [DW](http://threewalls.dreamwidth.org/211320.html).


End file.
